New York Times
August 30, 2009
Surfers Met Rodders, and a Genre Was Born By REX ROY
Detroit
WHO would have guessed that the quintessential California hot rod, the “stroked-and-bored” Ford with a “competition clutch and four on the floor” canonized by a fast-rising surf band early in the 1960s, was actually the realized dream of a Detroit teenager?
As is the case with so many other icons of popular culture, the legend and the facts surrounding this two-door 1932 Ford are an imperfect match.
This much is certain: The car that became an emblem of Southern California’s surf-and-speed culture as the model for the Beach Boys’ “Little Deuce Coupe” album cover is comfortably retired in Michigan, restored to period-correct glory and repatriated with the family of its builder.
Seeing the car firsthand is a reminder that record promoters have sometimes been known to take liberties. While the catchy Beach Boys lyrics praised a Ford flathead V-8, the album’s cover car was actually powered by an overhead-valve Oldsmobile engine, and its transmission was a three-speed, not the four on the floor of the hit single.
In fairness, the album’s minute-and-a-half title track was less about a particular ’32 Ford than a paean to the model that provided a canvas for the creativity of generations of customizers and backyard mechanics. The Deuce’s clean styling, broad availability and easily modified flathead V-8 engine proved durable long after its introduction during the depths of the Great Depression.
Flathead-powered Deuces — the nickname comes from the model year — had earned their reputation on the racetrack. But the 1932 Ford Model 18 represented much more. The body design was overseen by Henry Ford’s son, Edsel, and the V-8 was a breakthrough for affordable cars. Available in 14 body styles, the Deuce hit the market’s sweet spot and sold nearly 180,000 units.
But by the 1950s, the ’32 Fords that remained were cheap enough for teenage boys to purchase with the few dollars they earned bagging groceries. With the fenders stripped off, the sleek lines of a design adapted from Lincolns of the era became more visible.
The Little Deuce Coupe catapulted to fame amid a flood of car songs that glorified the performance of everything from a fuel-injected Sting Ray Corvette to a dual-quad positraction 409-cubic-inch Chevy. (Beach Boys lyrics generally did a good job of capturing the street racers’ jargon.)
The car’s story began in 1956, when Clarence Catallo, just 15 years old and without a driver’s license, purchased a neglected ’32 at a gas station across the street from his parent’s grocery store in Allen Park, Mich. The transformation of the $75 car began immediately.
Clarence’s son, Curt Catallo, said that his father channeled the coupe, lowering the body on the car’s frame, to drop its height by six inches. The old Ford engine was replaced with a more modern and powerful Oldsmobile V-8.
“My father had a knack for finding the right people to help him with this car,” Curt Catallo, 41, said. “Soon after he bought the coupe he took it to the A-Brothers,” as Mike and Larry Alexander, owners of a custom shop in Southfield, a Detroit suburb, were known.
The Alexander brothers created many of the distinctive design elements on the Catallo coupe, including the stacked headlights, custom grille, the sweeps of aluminum trim that run down the sides — and a rear valance made from Studebaker parts. And it was at the Alexander brothers’ shop that the coupe’s owner earned his nickname of Chili — it was his alternative to the doughnuts that were a mainstay of the diet there.
Once the customization project was under way, the urgent pace raised concerns with Clarence Catallo’s parents, who worried that their son might be spending too much time with the wrong crowd.
“To try to change my dad’s environment and get him thinking about something beyond cars, my grandparents offered to send him to college anywhere in the country,” Curt Catallo said. “He chose Long Beach Community College. Of course, that would put him right in the middle of the West Coast hot rod culture. My grandparents had no idea.”
Clarence Catallo headed west, towing the ’32 Ford behind a ragged Oldsmobile. In the fall of 1960, he took a job sweeping floors at George Barris’s Kustom City in North Hollywood, Calif., the shop where many well-known vehicles, including the original Batmobile and the Munster Koach, were created for films and television shows.
“Chili was part of our family,” Mr. Barris said in a telephone interview. “He’d work sanding cars, taking off parts, and then we’d go out to a drive-in, get in fights, just have a great time.”
Another round of modifications to the Catallo coupe began at the Barris shop, this time focused on preparing the car for the show circuit. The roof was chopped — lowered by several inches — and the car was painted a lighter shade of blue, work that the Alexander brothers had urged earlier.
The efforts paid off: the Catallo Deuce Coupe was featured on the cover of the July 1961 issue of Hot Rod, a magazine covering the custom car culture.
Far greater exposure for the Catallo coupe would come from its association with Mr. Barris, whose shop had built a run of about 20 candy-striped dune buggies for Capitol Records. Capitol was preparing to release a new Beach Boys’ album, which included the “Little Deuce Coupe” single.
“Some of their people knew about Chili’s car, and when they needed a Deuce for that album cover, they called us,” said Mr. Barris, who is in his 80s.
The album, released in October 1963, used a photograph, shot from ground level, taken for the Hot Rod layout. But this time, Clarence Catallo’s head was cropped out of the frame.
“The album cover acted like an afterburner for my dad’s success and the popularity of the coupe,” Curt Catallo said.
Clarence Catallo returned to Detroit, finished college and settled into a job in the financial industry. The coupe was sold in 1965, but it was not forgotten.
“As a kid I can remember sitting at Beach Boys concerts and hearing ‘Little Deuce Coupe,’” Curt Catallo said. “I’d think, ‘That’s my dad’s car they’re singing about. We should get it back.’”
The son finally convinced his father that he wasn’t getting enough credit for having built the car. The car was traced to Long Island, and Bob Larivee Jr. of Championship Auto Shows contacted the owner, who didn’t want to part with the Little Deuce Coupe.
“We leased the car for a year to be used as an attraction in our custom car shows,” Mr. Larivee said. “At the end of that lease, in 1998, he agreed to sell it to me for $40,000, way more than it was worth. But Clarence wanted the car and gave me the check, so I bought it.”
This put the coupe back in the Catallo family, and its restoration began. The Oldsmobile engine had been replaced with a Chrysler V-8, but fortunately, the seller had held onto many of the parts removed or replaced over the years.
The goal was to get the car ready for the Meadow Brook Concours d’Élégance in August 2000.
But Clarence Catallo’s death in 1998 left the coupe’s restoration to his son and daughter.
Curt Catallo enlisted the help of Mike Alexander and other craftsmen who originally worked on the car to complete its overhaul, with the intention of making the car appear exactly as it did on the album. Curt Catallo, who is a creative director at the BBDO advertising agency and owner of two restaurants, the Clarkston Union and Union Woodshop, even secured help from General Motors’ specialty vehicles group to resuscitate the powertrain.
The team finished just in time. Fittingly, the coupe took the People’s Choice award at Meadow Brook in 2000. The Little Deuce Coupe was back in the limelight.
“My dad built the coupe to make people talk,” Curt Catallo said. “It’s a 77-year-old car modified over 50 years ago, and it still has the same effect. I think that says something pretty amazing.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/automobiles/collectibles/30DEUCE.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5087&en=e2814ece9518cde8&ex=1267502400
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